Worse than Republican Governor Paul LePage, whose blustering and blundering have blunted most of his policy initiatives.

Worse than 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Libby Mitchell or 2012 Dem US Senate candidate Cynthia Dill, both of whom failed to connect with voters in even the most superficial ways.

Worse than David Marsters, a candidate for selectman in Sabattus, whose Facebook postings this summer included one using a racial slur in calling for the death of President Obama.

OK, it’s Marsters, who by comparison makes LePage look Lincolnesque and Dill and Mitchell positively Jeffersonian. It really wasn’t much of a contest.

But the race for second-worst pol in the state is considerably tighter, including the aforementioned threesome and a surprising dark horse. This long-shot candidate is someone who rarely makes public appearances, doesn’t often speak to the media, and hasn’t taken stands on most contentious issues. Yet, this person has still managed to alienate a larger percentage of the population than LePage, Mitchell, or Dill.

Take, for example, the way the second-worst politician described Maine on Forbes magazine’s website in 2011: “We have the most aged population in the country. . . . I believe we have one of the highest adult obesity rates in New England. We have . . . OxyContin abuse. . . . Maine’s the largest net receiver of Federal funds, even though we supposedly hate the Feds . . . it’s a welfare state.”

For good measure, our runner-up attacked the forest products industry as being in “complete denial” that its business plan was no longer viable and called rural Mainers who live in the Katahdin region “tone deaf when it comes to the environment.”

A week later, this pol sent a letter to the Bangor Daily News apologizing. Mainers weren’t geriatric, blubbery freeloaders, the letter said, so doped up on prescription meds that they’d even vote for somebody who’d be foolish enough to utter such insults. Instead, the state’s residents had “honesty, nobility and pride.”

At least she didn’t claim she never said the insulting stuff or if she did say it, her comments were taken out of context. Because she did, and they weren’t. So in that, she’s one up on the likes of LePage.

As you may have guessed by now, the state’s second-worst pol is none other than Roxanne Quimby, founder of the Burt’s Bees personal-care-products company, one-time potential Green Independent Party candidate for governor, flighty patron of Portland artist colonies, one of the state’s largest individual landowners, and the driving force behind the controversial effort to turn her 70,000 acres near Baxter State Park into a national park.

To her credit, Quimby seems of late to have recognized some of her shortcomings. Which is more than can be said of LePage, Mitchell, and Dill. After the Forbes debacle, she withdrew from the limelight, turning front-man duties over to her son, Lucas St. Clair, who’s everything his mother isn’t: likeable, credible, comfortable in front of the cameras. Since 2011, St. Clair has been attempting to haul his mom out of the public-relations hole she dumped herself in.

SMILING FACES | November 03, 2014 In an attempt to ease the state’s severe cognitive-dissonance shortage, the arbiters of good taste have spent this election season beseeching candidates to practice both civility and sincerity.

REASON HIDDEN | October 24, 2014 Late last year, Michaud publicly acknowledged his homosexuality. The experts were quick to claim it wouldn’t be a big factor in the gubernatorial race.

SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE | October 16, 2014 Want to save the taxpayers of Maine over $60 million? It’s so simple even somebody with no political skills at all can do it.